Remember the Bridge to Nowhere, the $223 million earmark boondoggle to build a bridge connecting an island with a population of 50 to the Alaska mainland? It was the apple of the eye of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, the cagey old Senate bull.
Stevens threatened to resign from the Senate last year when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, used the Bridge to Nowhere to spark a nationwide revolt against earmarks which is still going strong, even as Official Washington battles to somehow preserve its perogatives to spend the peoples’ money without the people knowing about it.
The Bridge to Nowhere is back in the news today because an Alaska agency responsible for planning the project – Stevens didn’t resign because he found a back-door way to fund the project – now says the costs are heading skyward, by $67 million.
Can you believe it, a government spending project getting more costly even before the first shovel hoists the first chunk of dirt – or frozen tundra? – from the ground? Ed Frank of Americans for Prosperity has more details.
